Christmas 2008

Wow-what a whirlwind Christmas we had! As always, we had a fun and festive time visiting family over the course of 3 days! The holidays began on Tuesday evening. We had our annual Girls Night Out with all of my friends from high school. We went out to eat at Crush, then headed to Tres Hombres. It was very exciting, because Keri was in labor while we were out, with regular contractions 5 minutes apart! We were having a great time timing them!

On Christmas Eve, Lucca and I met my mom and Becky Needham for our annual Christmas Eve lunch at Johnnies. Becky made us all beautiful knitted Santa hats. Here is a picture of my mom, Lucca, and I wearing our hats. Lucca was not in a picture taking mood at the time, as you can probably tell!

Later that afternoon, we went up to snowy Forest Ranch to Nana Pam and Grandpa's house. It was the first time that we have been up there at Christmas time and had snow, so it was pretty special! It didn't snow whole we were there, though. It just rained. It was still beautiful, though! It was Grandpa's birthday so we had his birthday prime rib dinner and opened presents. Lucca got a neat art table that came in a giant box. While she thought the art table was pretty cool, she was much more enamored with the giant box! Here is a picture of her in her "house."

We went back home and wrote a letter to Santa Claus and prepared a plate of cookies and milk for him. We also left carrots for the reindeer and sprinkled reindeer food on the lawn. Lucca was really anxious to get to sleep because she thought Santa wouldn't come if we were still awake. If only every night were Christmas Eve then bedtime battles would be over!

We woke up early on Christmas morning and Lucca was thrilled to discover that Santa had come and left her lots of goodies! We spent the morning opening gifts and eating our Christmas breakfast of eggs Benedict-yummy! During the afternoon, I went to the hospital to visit Keri and Lance and their new little Christmas Eve baby, Holden James! What a cutie! I am so proud of Keri and excited to get to know their new little bundle of joy! That evening we went up to Grammie and Papa's to have Christmas dinner. It was an exciting Christmas because we just found out that Heather and Ricky are going to have a baby in August!

The next day Christmas continued. We went over to Lito and Lita's house and had Christmas with Gabe's parents, Myriah, Blair, Matias, Gabe's grandma Julie, Aunt Jan, Uncle Bob, and Kaysen. Lucca and Matias had lots of fun opening there presents. It is always a fun Christmas when it is a baby's first, and Matias didn't disappoint! Here is a cute picture of Matias, and of Lucca and Matias playing with the Nativity scene (Lucca really liked the Baby Jesus).

After brunch and presents, we drove to Sacramento for our fourth and final Christmas with Grandpa Bruce, Grandma Lissa, and Grandmarty. We had a wonderful dinner and spent the evening opening gifts and relaxing. It was nice to have some down time after being on the go for the last few days! We spent the night and headed home the next morning. The last few days we have been at home and Lucca has been having a blast playing with all of her new Christmas toys and watching all of her favorite Christmas shows before it is time to put away all of the Christmas stuff until next year. We were truly blessed with all of our family and friends this year and we all had a wonderful Christmas!